Getting started Cordova Plugin

Introduction to the Wikitude SDK

Welcome to the Wikitude SDK. This document is designed to help you from your very first steps with the Wikitude SDK all the way through to advanced concepts and examples for developing your augmented reality project.

Recommended Usage of this Documentation

The documentation is arranged in a way to guide you through the various steps in your development process. We recommend following each of the steps outlined below and reading the documentation in the order displayed.

1

Setup your project with the Cordova Plugin

In this section we describe the necessary setup of the Wikitude SDK using the Cordova Plugin in a step-by-step guide.

All of the included samples are complete augmented reality experiences which run in SDKExamples app. Browse through this section and get an idea of what the SDK is capable of. The relevant parts of the samples are described in more detail to highlight the applied concepts and patterns. These examples are designed to help you get off to a great start with the Wikitude SDK.

Viewing samples based on vision based augmented reality requires the corresponding reference images. All of them are available directly in the description of the sample or available as a collection on this page, which you can either view on the screen or print.

This section will introduce you to best practices for your development workflow once you write your own code for your augmented reality experience.

The Cordova Plugin for the Wikitude SDK

The Wikitude Cordova Plugin enables web developers to embed an augmented reality view into their Cordova project. One can create a fully featured app with advanced augmented reality features, including image recognition and tracking, purely using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

The Wikitude Cordova Plugin

Available for iOS and Android

Simple and seamless native Cordova integration

Fully customizable augmented reality (AR) view

Full feature set of the Wikitude SDK

AR content is purely written in HTML and JavaScript

The Wikitude SDK - Augmented Reality for your own app

The Wikitude SDK is a software library and framework for mobile apps used to create augmented reality experiences. The SDK supports any kind of location based use case as well as use cases which require image recognition and tracking technology (vision based augmented reality).

Architecture of the Wikitude SDK

The image above shows the different components of the Wikitude SDK and possible approaches for creating augmented reality apps. Each of these approaches is based on certain development environments (IDE) and platforms:

Computer Vision Engine: The computer vision engine is part of the core component of the Wikitude SDK and used by all platforms. It includes three major parts in its own: SLAM Engine, Image Recognition Engine and the Object Recognition engine. The CV Engine is not directly accessible but wrapped either by the Native API (Java, ObjC) or the JavaScript API.

Wikitude SDK - JavaScript API: Allows to build augmented reality worlds on basis of HTML and JavaScript. It is available for Android and iOS. The JavaScript API provides access to the functionality of the computer vision engine, location based AR, the Plugins API, and dedicated rendering functionality.

Wikitude SDK - Plugins API: An API to connect your own plugins to the Wikitude SDK. (NOTE: Wikitude SDK plugins have nothing to do with the Cordova or Unity Plugin concept.)

Wikitude SDK - Cordova Plugin: On top of the JavaScript API the Cordova plugin allows to use the Wikitude SDK in combination with Apache Cordova.

Wikitude SDK - Titanium Module: On top of the JavaScript API the Titanium module allows to use the Wikitude SDK in combination with Titanium.

Wikitude SDK - Unity3D Plugin: On top of the Native API the Unity plugin allows to use the Wikitude SDK in combination with Unity.

Wikitude SDK - Xamarin Component: On top of the JavaScript API the Xamarin component allows to use the Wikitude SDK in combination with Xamarin.

How to code for the Wikitude SDK

The Wikitude SDK builds heavily on web technologies (HTML, JavaScript, CSS) to allow developers to write cross platform augmented reality experiences. These augmented reality experiences are called ARchitect worlds and are ordinary HTML pages that can utilize the ARchitect API to create objects in augmented reality.

Integrating the Wikitude SDK into your application is done by adding the platform specific view component called ARchitectView to your applications user interface. See the setup guide for how to setup projects and load an ARchitect World.

Get started with writing augmented reality experiences by browsing through the examples included in the SDK package. Each example is explained in detail in this documentation. Additional information about the ARchitect API can be found in the included API specification.

The Wikitude Developer Portal

The Wikitude Developer Section should be your first stop when you have specific development related questions. The portal hosts a very active Developer Community Forum where Wikitude staff members are constantly assisting other developers with helpful tips and advice. You can find How-To's and a constantly evolving FAQ section there as well.

Feedback and Contact

We are always interested in your feedback and suggestions how we can improve this documentation. Please use the contact form on our website or visit us on Linkedin, Facebook or Twitter.